Luis and His Horse

Recently my friend Luis (my godson Bruno’s father) was coming home from work on his horse cart. Luis earns most of the family’s income by cutting firewood in the forest that he later sells in the market. It is an extremely tiresome and humble way of making a living, but it has allowed him to get two daughters through the university and provides food on the table for his children. Just barely, but he manages. Just as he arrived at the entry to his home, his entire cart tilted over spilling all of the wood down the hill. Luis fell to the ground and discovered that his horse had died. Luis sat there with his horse the entire night until his wife Mariza finally found him and brought him to the house.

Luis inherited the horse about 15 years ago when his father-in-law passed away. He comes from a very modest family. He has no plot of land to tend and no family savings of money from which to draw. Luis never attended school and never learned to read or write. Considering his circumstance, he has done quite well for his family. They have a small snack bar at my school that doesn’t make much, but allows a block of cheese or maybe some meat or milk to augment the standard rice and beans. Luis also works nights as the security guard of the school, leaving him to sleep 3 hours at lunchtime per day. The money he earns as a security guard has allowed him to pay for his daughter’s educations. Now, with the loss of his horse, he was stuck at a crossroads. He didn’t have the money to replace the horse. Without his horse, the firewood business would be impossible and he wouldn’t have enough income to purchase the weeks food, let alone the stock for the snack bar, and certainly not his daughter’s educations. It was this last factor that had Luis most beat up. He has an intense belief that his sacrifices will be made fruitful by the success of his children and the future that they will provide for the family. He wants desperately to see his family move on from their day-to-day making ends meet lifestyle.

Luis and I sat on the hill above my school as we do every day. Here we have discussed everything from politics to family to women. This day he was clearly distraught. He began telling me everything that had happened the day before. He held back tears at first, but eventually couldn’t contain himself. His disposition and the desperation of the situation began to remind me of my own father and the difficult years we passed during his bankruptcy. I remembered how destroyed he felt when he imagined that he might not be able to send his kids to the schools they deserved. I felt so frustrated for Luis. I knew that the problem was so much bigger than a stupid horse, but I also new that what Luis needed right now was a real solution and not some theory about the cycle of poverty.

I went home that night and couldn’t sleep. I have always maintained during my time here that I cannot fix everyone’s problems, and that band-aiding situations would ultimately do no good. I also knew however, that a workhorse in Nicaragua costs approximately 150 dollars. This is an impossible amount for Luis, but nothing for me. Again I thought about my own family, the bankruptcy, my father’s illness, and those particular people who literally saved our lives through their generosity. I had always told myself that I would never forget their compassion. I woke up the next morning and pulled the money out of the bank. I thought on the way to school about how to approach Luis. What was the morally right thing to do? I thought about loaning the money. I considered paying for half. Finally I came to a conclusion. For once, Luis deserved a break. We sat up on the hill the next day and I handed him the envelope. I told him about my family and how I much I respected him and his unfailing work ethic. I gave him the money and told him that there was no catch. He refused the money. Luis is proud, just like my father. I handed him the money one more time, telling him that there was a lesson in all of this. He didn’t have to go this alone. We both sat there for a while, chocked up and unable to talk more. Luis finally took the help and went out to buy the horse the next day. I know that in some people’s minds, what I did was probably not the right thing to do. For me, it was the only human response possible. Luis is my friend.